Stretched Thin
by wingeddserpent
Summary: Lightning gets herself into a situation; Fang is more than willing to help her out of it.


Fang never takes last watch. Normally, that job is left to people who can cook: Vanille, Snow, Lightning, or Sazh. This morning, though, they're still asleep in the aftermath of a particularly rough fight with a King Behemoth, so Fang's taken all the watches. In part, it's an apology for being out scouting when trouble hit. Her brand pulsates and she grits her teeth—the emotion wracks her with pain, but there are no arrows, no promise of an end, and so she ignores it.

From the other side of camp, Lightning stirs just as the sky begins to lighten with dawn. Her gaze meets Fang's, and she pushes herself to standing and then makes her way over. "Morning," she says, mouth slack with sleep, her greeting clumsy.

She's bleary-eyed, squinting, and then she nods, and pads away from camp, close enough that Fang can still see her. For a moment, Lightning just stands there, and then she moves, slow at first, and then with increasing intensity, her chest rising and falling evenly. After a time, she slides down to sitting, legs spread, and then she flattens, grabbing the bottoms of her feet.

It clicks then. Stretching. All the fancy flips and maneuvering, it's not all that surprising, really. Fang hadn't really thought about it before.

Lightning starts slowly, starts on the ground, her movements so slow and so smooth and so effortless that Fang thinks that she could probably do them in her sleep. There's barely a pause between stretches, she just slides from one movement to the next, her mouth occasionally forming numbers as she counts and breathes, timed perfectly with her motions.

When Lightning stands, Fang's breath catches, eyes locked on the smooth skin, the ripple of muscle as Lightning folds herself nearly in half so fluidly that Fang can imagine—she digs her nails in her palm to stop the thought. No time for that—no time to explore the range of movements Lightning can make, no time to get to know the moans and exhalations and—she releases her breath, and watches as Lightning takes a breath of her own and then slides slowly down into the splits. She holds it for a time, then gently releases it.

She increases the intensity, leaving behind comfort, putting herself through increasingly complicated motions. For a moment, it's easy to imagine a time long since past—imagine a younger Lightning, one who hadn't forgotten how to smile, pushing herself to achieve this flexibility, easy to imagine her sweaty and grinning, proud of the knots she had tied herself into and undone a little less skillfully. It's easy to imagine those legs wrapped around her waist, Lightning curled around her, like a snake or a cat, and then Fang brushes it from her mind.

Because there's no time. No time to explore, to learn, to do anything but watch. Fang lets out a breath, rubs a hand across her face.

The stretches stop being static, the motions still smooth, but more calculated, her body and mind both obviously awake now. Her breathing is a little less even, but still controlled and in time with the constant motion of the dynamic stretches that show off her flexibility and strength even more than the earlier stretches had. Fang's mouth dries and she swallows a few times.

Lightning pushes and pushes herself, until she's getting herself into positions Fang can't even begin to take apart with her eyes, despite her own training. Spears require a whole different movement set from gunblades—being able to fold into a pretzel is really not something Fang knows how to do.

It catches her unawares. She's so lost watching the smooth movement, the gleaming skin, the flexing muscle, that she barely realizes what's happened until she sees the way Lightning's eyes widen, until she sees the way Lightning's mouth forms an 'o' and then her teeth grit, face twisting with pain. Then Lightning is perfectly still and Fang finally moves, coming to kneel beside her, and Lightning glances at her, not moving, and her eyes are hazy with pain, unshed tears glittering in her eyes. She exhales a heavy breath. "Where?" Fang asks, gently, like she's taming a particularly wild chocobo.

"Lower back," Lightning manages, voice reed thin.

Carefully—so, so carefully—Fang traces her fingertips over Lightning's lower back and winces. The muscles spasm, probably strained if not torn from the constant abuse of fighting and stretching. "Did you hurt yourself yesterday?" Fang asks, "Get knocked down a bit too hard?"

Lightning sucks in a deep breath (oh, and Fang would love to hear that again in a different context) and then says, "Hit a cliff. Meant to do a different stretch pattern this morning. Tired. Forgot. _Shit_."

With a grimace, Fang focuses on the healing magic she recently learned, and gently presses it into Lightning's back, and the muscles tense even more, making Lightning keen (_oh_, oh yes, that's a noise she could get used to), and Fang growls, pushing more magic into the other woman. Nothing changes, her back continues to drink in the magic, and Fang sighs. "I'm not much of a spell caster," she murmurs, "Want me to wake Hope?"

"No. Fang, I—shit. Please, no. Fang," Lightning bites down on a cry of pain.

Fang blows a sigh out—this is about to get tricky—and says, "Alright, love, calm down. I won't let them see."

If Lightning could relax from relief, she would. But that's the entire problem, isn't it?

Focus comes to her in jagged pieces (because ignoring the feel of Lightning beneath her fingertips is hard, forgetting Lightning's smell is harder) but she calls it to herself, calls the magic, and remembers the old lore:

_The left hand is the healer's hand, the right hand is the warrior's. Both are needed for strength._

This sort of thing doesn't work in battle, doesn't work with the distraction of enemies, with the pump of adrenaline through the veins. It requires absolute focus. Fang shuts her eyes, and releases her breath on the count of ten. Ice comes to her fingertips at her right hand, and she quiets it to a sharp chill rather than sharp shards, and she moves her hand across Lightning's back, careful not to actually touch it, and Lightning makes a choked noise as the muscles make their protests know.

Sweat beads at Fang's temples as she calls a cure spell to her left hand, and she moves it to join her right, moving both hands slowly over the injury, and Lightning moans.

Fang's concentration nearly breaks—damn, but Lightning is a noisy one, can't help but wonder what she'd sound like if—and she snaps her focus back to holding the different sets of magic, to containing the Ice to just her hand so Lightning only gets the soothing cold and not the blizzard, and pressing the healing magic into her back. Effort makes her arms shake but she can feel the muscle starting to heal, and then she shifts the Ice to Fire, containing the burn and letting only a fraction of the warmth move over the injury. She redoubles her healing spell, and finally feels some of the tenseness starting to ebb away.

Lightning hisses through her teeth and waits until Fang lets the magic trickle away. "Thanks," she wheezes, not trying to move.

With a sharp nod—there's no way she can talk right this second—Fang helps her shift into a better position, guiding Lightning's movement with careful, gentle hands. Lightning's still warm from the weak Fire spell and Fang shuts her eyes and allows herself a moment to enjoy it. In order to keep her back from tensing again, Lightning does some easy, therapeutic stretches, and Fang guides her, glad for an excuse to touch her.

One hand goes to Lightning's thigh, the other to her hip, and she helps Lightning slowly, carefully stretch her back. Motions that had caused no problem earlier now make Lightning's breath ragged. Wryly, Fang reaches out and tucks a sweat-slicked lock of hair behind Lightning's ear.

"I think I'm all right," Lightning says finally, gingerly rolling her shoulders without Fang's guidance.

It's a good sign, so Fang helps her to standing, and Lightning looks up at her for a moment with an unreadable expression. "You look exhausted," she says.

"Mixing magic'll do that to a person," Fang replies with an easy wink. "Don't worry about it. Now, you've gotta take it a bit easy today, or I'm putting you into Hope's care for the rest of the day, you hear me?"

Lightning's mouth curls up at the corners, eyes twinkling, and Fang shakes her head. Silly girl.

Something shifts behind Lightning's eyes, and there's a pause where Fang swears she can feel the crackle of electricity in the air, and then Lightning moves and presses her mouth against Fang's, and Fang blinks at the sudden warmth (when was the last time someone caught her off-guard with a kiss?) and then she opens her mouth and Lightning slides her tongue in, with a confidence that nearly makes Fang groan.

Fang wraps an arm around Lightning's waist, letting the other fall to her shoulder; Lightning buries her fingers in Fang's hair, and Fang's not sure what brought this on, but she's not complaining.

Because there's no time—but, sometimes, that just means you've got to enjoy the time you do have all the more.

Behind them, one of the others—Sazh, from the sounds of it—groans awake, and Fang pulls back, letting her hands fall away. There's a pause, and then Lightning does the same, looking up at her, expression unreadable again, but her lips are parted and wet and—Fang digs her nails into her palms again, and would laugh at herself if she wasn't panting so hard.

Turns out that mixing magic and kissing are somewhat detrimental to breathing.

"Thank you," Lightning repeats, and Fang waves a hand, negative.

They both turn to go to camp, and Lightning murmurs, just loud enough that there's no misunderstanding, "We'll finish this later."


End file.
